Missed opportunities doom Lady Raiders in loss

Wednesday

The Texas Tech women’s basketball team tried to duplicate everything about its much-needed victory from Saturday night, right down to wearing the same Play4Kay, pink-accented uniforms.

In the end, however, the Lady Raiders failed to make the needed plays at the end, especially from the free-throw line, as West Virginia rallied for a 75-72 victory Wednesday night at United Supermarkets Arena.

“It gets back to controlling what we can control in the game,” Texas Tech head coach Marlene Stollings said. “We had every opportunity to win the game and we didn’t capitalize on it, and that’s disappointing at this point in the season. There are multiple things you can look at in that last minute and a half to two minutes where we could have controlled our own destiny and we just didn’t take advantage of it.”

Texas Tech (11-13, 2-11 in Big 12) led 72-67 with just over 21/2 minutes to play before West Virginia (17-6, 8-4) closed the game with eight straight points, including the game-clinching bucket from Naomi Davenport with 11.2 seconds left after four straight missed free throw by Tech.

Still up 72-71 with under a minute to play and West Virginia down two players who fouled out, Brittany Brewer and Chrislyn Carr missed two free-throws each, and WVU converted the final miss into the decisive Davenport layup. Then, after the Mountaineers stole an inbound lob in the lane to Brewer with 8.9 seconds left, Tynice Martin hit two free throws to ice the game for the Mountaineers and send the Lady Raiders to what has become an all-too-familiar ending this season.

“I don’t think it felt different,” said Carr, who finished with 15 points before fouling out prior to the two free throws by Martin. “I feel like it’s all the same things when we’re close. We just have to close out games better and we know what we have to do to get the win.”

Considering his team blew a 13-point first-half lead then had to rally from five down late in the fourth quarter, West Virginia head coach Mike Carey said his team was fortunate to get out of Lubbock with a victory, especially considering all the things Tech did right.

The Lady Raiders outscored WVU in the paint (32-26), off turnovers (33-19) and in second-chance points off offensive rebounds (16-7). But what helped push the Mountaineers to the victory column was having what limited bench Carey did have come through with big nights.

After pouring in 24 points against Iowa State on Saturday, freshman guard Madisen Smith (7.5 ppg. average) dumped in a game-high 20 more against the Lady Raiders. Nia Staples (1.6 ppg.) scored a career-high 11 points while Jala Jordan (1.8 ppg) tied a career-high with six points, including two inside baskets after center Theresa Ekhelar and forward Kari Niblack both fouled out and Lucky Rudd picked up her fourth foul with Tech up 69-65.

“Give our girls credit down the stretch. They did a good job,” Carey said. “It’s just a battle every game. Give (Tech) credit, they went where they were supposed to go, in the paint, and we didn’t do a good job defending and when we did we fouled. Once (Tech) starts learning to win these close ones, they’re going to be pretty good.”

Sydney Goodson matched Carr with 15 points, all on 3-pointers, while Angel Hayden and Erin DeGrate (11 rebounds) had 12 points for the Lady Raiders.

Davenport added 18 points and Martin chipped in 16 for the Mountaineers, but it was the bench players for WVU and Tech’s failure to make plays down the stretch that kept the Lady Raiders from celebrating a second straight victory.

“They had two kids step up tonight that basically average a point. One has 11 and one has six,” Stollings said. “That’s 17 points in the game and they combine for two points in a game. That really hurt us but that’s credit to them, that’s kids coming off the bench that are ready when their number’s called, and they stepped up and had a big night for them. That definitely hurt us.”

NOTABLE

Wednesday’s loss denied Texas Tech consecutive victories since the Lady Raiders won four straight to end December prior to Big 12 Conference play. The last time Texas Tech won back-to-back regular-season Big 12 games was Jan. 1 and Jan. 4 of 2017 against Oklahoma State and Iowa State. At the end of the 2016-17 season, the Lady Raiders did beat TCU twice, once to end the regular season and again four days later in the opening round of the Big 12 Championships in Oklahoma City … Saturday’s victory over Oklahoma State doubled its win total in Big 12 play from all of last season … Freshman Chrislyn Carr leads all freshmen in the nation in scoring at 18.5 points per game and is third overall in league play in scoring. She has been held to single digits in scoring just twice the entire season.

WHAT’S NEXT

West Virginia returns home to face TCU at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Texas Tech hits the road for a pair of games, starting with a 2 p.m. clash on Sunday at Kansas.